2 Person L-Shaped Desk: Can Two People Share One?

The short answer: a 2 person L-shaped desk works only when each wing is a seat of its own, with open leg room underneath and enough top for one person. OfficeSimpli's L-shaped executive desk seats one: its return is a cabinet of drawers and a shelf, with no leg room. The University of California's ergonomics requirements ask for a top at least 46 inches wide for computer-only work, or 60 inches with paperwork, so two people side by side on one top need about 92 to 120 inches. For two people working at once, set up two of our desks as mirror images, or choose a two-person workstation. Taking turns, like a parent and a teen? One desk works if each person resets the chair.

Can two people sit at an L-shaped desk?

For a short meeting, yes. For two full workdays at once, only if the desk was built with two seats: check each wing before you plan on two chairs.

On all three sizes of our L-shaped executive desk, the open leg room is under the main top only; the return is a cabinet. The product page says the L gives you "two work zones without two desks": screens on the main top, and a wing on the return for a printer, paperwork or a guest laptop. Those are two zones for one person, not two seats.

A visitor can still pull a chair up to the return for a meeting; with drawers where the legs would go, it is not a second desk.

How do you set up a home office for two? Three layouts with two L-desks

Any two desks work in these layouts; pick how they face by how much you talk and where the walls and door are. If you don't need drawers, one top at least 92 inches wide seats two, by UC's per-person widths.

1

Side by side, as mirror images

Good for: working togetherOrder: one Left return, one Right

Set the two main tops next to each other along one wall, returns on the outside, and put the window to one side of you, not in front. Sitting at the desks, the person on the left gets a Left return and the person on the right a Right return, so each person's drawers sit on their own side. Our L-shaped desk FAQ explains how returns are named.

Want both returns in the middle, between your chairs? Swap them: a Right return on the left desk, a Left return on the right. The product page does not say whether two desks can be fastened together. If you want them joined, ask us before you order.

Try this: stand where each chair will go and point to the wall its return should run along. That side names the return to order.

2

Facing each other across the main tops

Good for: talking through the dayNeeds open floor on two sides

Push the backs of the two main tops together, so you sit face to face across them. The product page says the full modesty panel hides cables and legs from the guest side, so with two panels between you, neither of you sees the other's legs or cords.

The product page says cables drop behind the modesty panel, so with the backs together, both desks' cords end up in the middle. You also need walking room behind each chair; the spacing section of our workstation guide covers how much.

Try this: find the outlet nearest the middle of the room first, and check that both desks' cords reach it without crossing a walkway.

3

On opposite walls, chairs back to back

Good for: calls and focusFixes: seeing each other's screen

Put each desk against its own wall, so your chairs sit back to back in the middle of the room. You each look at your own wall, not at the other person or their screen, which is useful when one of you is on calls.

Try this: both of you roll your chairs back as far as you would at the end of a call. If the chairs meet, move the desks apart.

If you pick two of our desks

Each desk is the L-Shaped Executive Desk with Lockable Drawers, made in the USA. Each of you gets your own drawers and printer wing: all the drawers lock, half of the bottom drawer is built for hanging files, and cable grommets (lined holes that let cords drop through the top) come standard.

The top is engineered wood with a thermally-fused laminate surface (a wood-look layer fused on with heat) in a walnut-look finish. The product page lists clear-coat protection and calls the surface water-resistant and scratch-resistant.

Both desks ship free in the continental US, to your curb or loading dock. White Glove Delivery, one service you pick at checkout, is one flat price per order, any size, on our Delivery Options page: the crew carries each piece inside and places it in the room you choose, and assembly is not included with either option. Depending on the size, each desk arrives in four or five pre-assembled sections, and final assembly is joining them into the L. Chairs, monitors and lamps are separate buys.

Worth knowing: our L-desk seats one, so two people means two desks, and two L-desks take more floor than a two-person bench on one shared frame. If floor space is tight, our workstation guide covers two-person workstations.

Or compare every L-shaped desk we sell.

Two-person desk questions, answered